Set Apart For A Reason

Set Apart For A Reason  

11/30/10 

For years, mostly when I was in school, I tried my best to fit in with everybody else to keep people off my back and minimize ridicule and scrutiny. No matter how hard I tried, nothing ever worked. Somehow, some way, me being different from everybody else always had a way of coming out, and I was even treated like I was different. Even in pursuing relationships with women, I had being different used against me. The biggest reason for it was mainly because I have morals, values, and standards to live up to, and plus I actually know how to treat a woman. It became obvious after a while that the women that I dealt with in the past were not used to how I treated them and the lengths I would go to to make them happy. Because I'm cut from a different cloth than most people, I have always been misunderstood. I don't particularly like it, and it even gets frustrating at times, but I have learned to deal with it. One big reason for being misunderstood is that people don't take the time to get to know somebody, so they make assumptions and judgments based on what they believe. That is a form of laziness. This is why I have the saying, PEOPLE NEVER LET THE FACTS GET IN THE WAY OF WHAT THEY WANT TO BELIEVE IS TRUE!!!I believe 3 of the most crucial things that hold people back and keep them from ultimately getting what they want in life are negativity, judgement, and imbalance. Which brings me to another phrase I live by: 

IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T KNOCK IT, SOMEBODY ELSE MIGHT WANT TO ROCK IT.....IF YOU DON'T NEED IT, DON'T WASTE IT, SOMEBODY ELSE MIGHT WANT TO TASTE IT. 

It wasn't until I was 21 that I realized that I can't be anybody but myself. From that point on, I was done with putting up a front and trying to be something that I wasn't. I decided that if somebody was going to like me, they had to like me for me. If not, that was one less person in my life that I had to worry about. That's also when I realized that true friends know ALL about you, even your most embarassing, deepest, and darkest secrets, and they STILL like you and embrace you for you. I also learned that everybody is unique in their own way, and that we all bring certain gifts to the table that nobody else can bring. People have found all kinds of ways over the years to tell me that I'm different, like calling me things like weird, strange, eccentric, or just simply not normal. Up until about 4 years ago, I hated it like hell. But now, it's whatever. Think about it: with everybody being different in their own way, is there really a such thing as normal? The perfect scripture to back me up on this way of thinking is 1 Corinthians 1:27, which says that God uses foolish things to confound the wise. It's amazing how much people run away from things because of the way they are disguised. Sometimes the very person or thing you can't wait to get away from might be the source where you find everything you are looking for. 

Besides educating myself, my purpose for my research and my writing is to:

-change people's perspective/give them a different understanding in some areas

-get people to think outside the box 

-turn people's view of the world upside down and cause them to be brave enough to rethink everything they ever thought

I see life much differently than most people, and I don't process information the same way everybody else does either. I also see a lot of things that are not obvious to most people, and I give examples in everything I write. If any of these examples sound familiar or make you uncomfortable, then that might be a sign that you should assess some of these for yourself.  

Here are a couple more random examples of how my mind works: 

Example 1: Real life and sports mirror each other, and not just on the playing field.  

One good example I can give for this, is how the Dallas Cowboys ended up with Dez Bryant. I'll make the connection with that process to my own life. Underneath every point I make about Dez Bryant, I'll have a parallel about myself in parenthesis. 

-Dez Bryant was labeled as a thug and a character risk because of a dysfunctional upbringing and a bad habit of always being late.

(I was labeled as simple, slow, retarded, soft, etc. by people growing up while I was dealing with a traumatic childhood and all the things I went through along with it.)

 -Dez Bryant had football taken away from him when he was suspended by the NCAA 3 games into his junior year at Oklahoma State.

(I got football taken away from me during my redshirt sophomore year at Alabama A&M when I was told by my coaches that I wasn't cut out for football. I went into depression and got an academic suspension.) 

-After being suspended from football, Dez Bryant declared for the 2010 NFL Draft.

(After being suspended from school, I enlisted in the Army.) 

-Dez Bryant was EASILY a top 5 talent, and most definitely was the best wide receiver in the NFL Draft. In my opinion, he was the prize of the draft. He was definitely a steal for where the Dallas Cowboys picked him. Dez Bryant is a once-in-a-generation talent, blessed with extremely rare physical gifts. Even as a rookie, he is physically the most gifted wide receiver in the NFL, and as soon as he learns the ropes he will be the best wide receiver in the NFL for years to come. With all of that being said, as talented and as physical gifted as Dez Bryant is, he slid all the way down to the 24th pick in the draft. Not only was he not selected near the top of the draft, he wasn't even the first wide receiver picked. He was passed over for a another wide receiver, as well as other players with inferior talent. The Cowboys traded up a few draft spots and drafted him, and now Dez Bryant is well on his way to proving everybody wrong that passed on him.

(I have several different rare and unique talents, and considered a rare breed by just about everybody I meet. I'm a late bloomer and still learning the ropes in some aspects of life. My inexperience in these things have hurt me in crucial areas of my life. I have been overlooked and passed up by not just women, but just about everybody I encountered, even given up on at times. When it came to women, I was passed over quite often for men that were dishonorable, dishonest, and all other traits that give men a bad rap. I feel like once I gain a little bit more experience in life and mesh it with all of my gifts, I will live as an UNSTOPPABLE force of nature.  At that point, I'll be well on my way to proving everybody wrong that passed on me.) 

Like Mike Jones said, "Back then they didn't want me now I'm hot, they all on me." 

 Example 2: Controlling Your Own Destiny And Becoming The Person You Were Meant To Be 

My blog that I wrote 3 years ago called Slavery In America & The Prison Of Hope covers this very topic, and I'll be writing several more blogs on it in the future. To make a long story short, you WILL NOT reach your full potential and become the person you were meant to be by playing it safe and not taking chances. The biggest reason people don't want to pay that price to make that happen is because by nature, we don't like to unsettle things in our life. Because of that, we settle for mediocrity when we could have a miracle. Only 3% of the world population have decided to pay the price to have that freedom, and the other 97% are employed by them. The 3% crowd are very open-minded, know how to make the most of their opportunities, and most importantly they know how to work SMARTER-NOT HARDER. Because of that, the 3% crowd also control 97% of the wealth in this world, whether they got it the right way or the wrong way.  

I honestly believe that I'm a part of that 3% crowd myself. I believe I can hang with that crowd because I fully understand the mindset that you need to have to be in that position, I'm very well aware of the price you have to pay to have that kind of freedom, and I'm definitely not afraid of failure. If anybody from that small group of elite people in the world came to me and wanted to have an intelligent conversation, I'm confident that I most definitely would be able to keep up. In other words, I have the makeup of those people, but not the wealth just yet. With that being said, I have absolutely no problem being labeled as a MISFIT, and I embrace it all day every day. 

The biggest obstacle that I run into is that things like education, past experience and habitual thinking patterns keep people trapped in limiting assumptions. It takes a real effort to challenge those assumptions and think outside the box. Most people are very poor at doing this and have to work hard at it, unlike creative geniuses to whom this kind of thinking comes naturally. I feel like once you learn how to think outside the box, you open up many more possibilities, and problem solving becomes easier. One of the biggest (probably the biggest) prices to pay for not rethinking what you believe and not learning how to think outside the box is that you will continue to be deceived. Deceived is seeing things from the wrong point of view, leading your mind in the wrong direction. Deception can get so bad that the person that is deceived will think the person with the truth is the one that bought the lie. If you don't rethink what you believe, you will find yourself in a life of maintenance, working hard to stay in the same place. 

One last thing, I had to totally rebuild my confidence in myself and my abilities, as well as my self-esteem over the last 3 years. In the past when I didn't have much confidence, a lot of people used to tell me that I need to work on it. When I did show traces of it at times, those same people thought I was being cocky or arrogant. I'm not either one of those by a longshot, I just know who I am and know what I'm capable of. I even believe that if I get my needs and wants met, everybody that's connected to me in some kind of way will benefit from that, because then I'll be in a position where I can pull everybody else up and make sure they get theirs too. I also know that your mouth is the most powerful weapon that you have, and that what you say is what you get. It's absolutely critical that you believe in yourself the way I do myself, because nobody else will believe in you the way you do. You will never go beyond what you believe about yourself.